NBA commissioner David Stern and NBPA executive director Billy Hunter may be losing control over their respective constituencies as the sides try to end the four-month old lockout, agents tell CBS Sports’ Ken Berger.

Union president Derek Fisher was conspicuously alone when he addressed the media after talks ended late Saturday night. Some wondered where Hunter was, and one agent suggested Hunter’s authority has waned since he already has lost the battle for a 52 percent share of basketball-related income,

Union chief Billy Hunter is under siege, agents say. But so is his counterpart, NBA Commissioner David Stern. (AP Photo)

"If 52 was the magic number, is he done?" one agent wondered, according to Berger. "Is that symbolic? That's what I thought: 'He's toast.' Everybody's saying the magic number is 52, and if it's under that, he'd be removed. So maybe he's been removed."

Stern blamed Jeffrey Kessler, an outside attorney for the union, for turning down the owners’ latest proposal, and Kessler vehemently proclaimed after the meeting that players will “not be intimidated.”

"We don't even know who Kessler is," an agent told Berger. "We don't have any access to this guy whatsoever. Who is this guy? Now he's saying whether or not the deal is a fraud?"

But Stern, according to Berger’s agent sources, may be seeing his control over the league’s side slipping, too.

"The league has to give an olive branch," a moderate agent who does not favor decertification said. "But David Stern has to be in that room knowing it, and it has to kill him not to be able to give that little olive branch that, in the scheme of things, who cares?"

Added an agent who does favor decertification, "Honestly, I think (Stern) has lost control of this thing. There's no way in the world David Stern wants an NBA season blown up when the owners already have gotten as good a deal as he's gotten them."